Tag: mastery

  • Dance Practice Log – December 09, 2024

    When: Monday, December 09, 2024 6:30pm until 8:00pm
    Where: Morden home living room

    Summary

    Yesterday I trained for about 1.5 hours. Up until last couple training sessions, I felt so much resistance, so much procrastination. And every time I get myself to to practice — not force — I feel emotionally better, lifted with higher spirits, and I can see the work paying off. I feel it. I see it.

    What did I do

    • Conditioning
      • Jump roping (3 minutes)
      • 2 rounds of single leg squats, lunge jumps (my enemy), squats, holding dance positions
    • 1 round of 9 exercises with ankle weights
      • Compass on time
      • Compass double time
      • Compass with a swing
      • Jump from side to side
      • Rapid fire forward and backwards
      • Side to side arm stretches (used to make me nauseous but not anymore)
    • 6 rounds of pas de bourrée rhythm training with ankle weights
      • On time, double time, “standard”, 1/16th
    • 6 rounds of cross step rhythm training without ankle weights
      • On time, double time, “standard”, 1/16th
    • Musicality exercise – Used Garage band (no. 16)
    • Freestyle round – started cramping so I stopped after about 3 minute round

    What was the main focus?

    • Musicality and transitions
    • Updated dance training program – added moves such as roger rabbit, jack in the box, side walk, drunk walk, compass, swirl, heel toe, dodger
    • Drilling rhythmic pattern (Mavinga)
    • Main intention continues to be holding the position just a fraction of a second longer, particularly on rhythm 3 before transitioning to 1/16th notes

    Wins

    • Throughout freestyle round, I incorporated (recency bias) the kick, bend, into roger rabbit transition (from Miriam)
    • Setup with the repetition – this is something that I came up for myself; well, I arrived at this move on my own and do not doubt that others in the world have come up with the same move
    • Threw in the shuffle transition I picked up from Miriam from class last Saturday – kick out right, step left leg back behind right, finish the shuffle kick out. I find this transition really beautiful and I’m adding my own flavor, my own sauce to it

    Areas of Improvements

    • Right arm stiff during swirl (and more generally, in all movements)
    • Adding textures
    • Incorporating pauses and quarter time with intention
    • I’m thinking of doing something like Bas Ruten, creating .mp3 files of me just telling myself the exercises with music baked into it

    Full training and practice video

  • Harry Mack on mastery, art of practicing, and flow state

    I recently listened to a podcast episode by Harry Mack — a very gifted freestyle rap artist — named “Flow State” and I want to share a few key insights I took away regarding the art of practice. Though the discussion around his beliefs and advice revolve around freestyle rapping, I believe the principles can be more generally applied to other areas of life (e.g. dance) and ultimately, I think he’s ultimately describing mastery.

    Harry Mack Podcast Snippet (60 seconds) recapping mastery

    Some background: like many others, I like to think that I am someone who values process vs results. Though hitting objectives and reaching goals are important, especially in certain contexts, I stay rooted in the art of mastery in both my personal and professional pursuits. These days, given dance is at the forefront of my life, I’m less concerned about winning a dance battle and more concerned with exploring my mind and body during a performance:

    • What am I feeling?
    • What are my thoughts?

    Together, these two help gain more self-awareness, help me better understand WHO I AM and help me better align myself with WHO I WANT TO BECOME.

    Similarly, on a professional level, these days I’m less concerned with my title and role (something I used to obsess over) and more with what the day to day responsibilities include.

    Now, I’ve been interested in the topic of practice and mastery for over a decade; according to my Amazon purchase history, I bought the book “Talent is overrated” and “Mastery: The Keys to Success and Long-Term Fulfillment.” It’s a topic that I find myself gravitating towards on a daily basis.

    Okay, enough background. Let’s get into it.

    Main Take Away

    Harry Mack transferred his knowledge of practice — he’s been playing music since he was 7 — and applied mastery to freestyle rap.

    What practicing is NOT: just doing the activity

    Here’s a common misconception when it comes to practice: just do the activity (e.g. dance, play the instrument) itself. Nope. That is NOT practice. While Harry Mack concedes that doing the activity itself will improve you skills and will help you ascend to a higher level, performing the activity is insufficient to reach what he considers an elite level. To reach an elite level, one must devote time to actual practice.

    So what is it?

    What is practicing?

    Practice is about identifying your weakness and is more or less fairly regimented. A subtle (but what I consider important) point he makes is that the activity should feel fun and that you are more or less “creating little games for yourself … that are aimed at specific weaknesses so that you can improve upon them.”

    I apply this concept of practice to my dance journey. One (of many) area of weaknesses that I’m aware of is my lack of coordination to intentionally perform polyrhythms: move two (or more) body parts at different rhythms. Most recently, I am working on polyrhythm that consists of 1) The cross step 2) Head isolation and 3) Arm movement. Though the integration of all three is what I’m trying to accomplish, I am breaking it down in parts that are manageable and within the range of my abilities. Harry Mack underscores the importance of making the exercises tailor fit for yourself:

    “If you are not able to achieve the goal at a decent percentage, you need to slow down, shaving away excess, so you get right to the thing that you’re working on.”

    Harry Mack’s example of practicing triplets

    His practice is not something he would not typically do in front of others because practice seems rather mundane and he believes (though I disagree here) that his audience would not find it entertaining or engaging.

    An example of practice (for him) is triplet rhythms, with one syllable rhymes. The practice would be him rapping four bars:

    Off of the top I get in the zone.

    I’m on the one I’m never no clone.

    I do my bars direct off the dome.

    I send these rappers all the way home

    He’d perform this exercise for 20 minutes and reminds the listeners of the podcast that the practice is NOT a performance.

    Performance: where the rubber meets the road

    As mentioned above, practice is highly regimented with clear parameters. When it comes to performing (in front of others), Harry Mack offloads all the regimented practice, letting it all go: “[Performance is] bringing everything together in real time without the regimented structure and there are no rules”

    Summary

    Ultimately, to practice, you want to come up with your own exercises that:

    1. Get you into a flow state
    2. Match your current skill level

    Flow state is not about repeatedly doing something easy. It’s a meditative state.

    In fact, it’s about “doing the thing that is at the razor’s edge of your ability …. we can make practice fun; don’t bite off more than you can chew. The surest way that practice doesn’t feel flowy and fun is try to do something that’s way outside your ability and you’re just fucking up the whole time.”

    If you are tripping up, try slowing it down, making it easier somehow, or reducing scope.